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The  Reverend 
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philadelphia  : 

Press  of  MacCalla  &  Company  Inc. 

237-9  dock  street 


THE    REVEEEND    TALBOT    WILSON    CHAM- 
BERS, S.T.D.,  LL.D/'= 

Summary  of  Events. 

TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS  was  bom  at  Carlisle,  Pa., 
on  the  25tli  of  February,  1819,  and  was  the  third  in  a  family 
of  nine  children.  His  parents  were  W.  C.  Chambers,  M.D.,  and 
Mary  Ege.  He  was  baptized  June  6,  1819.  He  entered  Dickinson 
College  in  his  native  town  when  eleven  years  of  age.  On  May  15, 
1831,  he  was  received  into  the  full  communion  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  of  Carlisle.  In  the  spring  of  1832  he  entered  the  Sopho- 
more class  of  Rutgers  College,  New  Brunswick,  N.  J.,  from  which 
institution  he  graduated  in  1834,  sharing  with  two  others  the 
second  honor  in  a  class  of  twenty.  The  year  following  graduation 
from  college  he  spent  in  the  theological  seminary  at  New  Brans- 
wick.  His  diary  indicates  that  a  few  weeks  in  the  middle  of  the  year 
following  were  also  spent  in  New  Brunswick,  when  sickness  inter- 
rupted his  studies.  The  middle  year  of  the  seminary  course  was 
taken  by  him  at  Princeton  in  1836-37.  At  the  close  of  this  year  he 
was  offered  the  benefit  of  a  three  years'  scholarship,  as  having  shown 
the  "  most  zeal  and  ardor  in  the  study  of  sacred  and  Oriental 
literature."  This  he  was  obliged  to  decline.  From  the  fall  of 
1837  to  the  spring  of  1839  he  was  engaged  in  private  teaching  in 
Vicksburg,  Natchez  and  Oakly,  Miss.,  family  losses  making  this 
necessary  in  order  to  support  himself  and  a  younger  brother. 
During  this  period  he  was,  on  the  21st  of  October,  1838,  licensed  to 
preach  by  the  Presbytery  of  Clinton,  at  Clinton,  Miss.  On  October 
1,  1839,  he  accepted  the  call  of  the  Second  Reformed  Dutch  Church 
of  Raritan,  at  Somerville,  N.  J.,  beginning  his  ministerial  service  on 
October  13,  and  being  ordained  and  installed  on  the  22d  of  Janu- 
ary, 1840,   just  before  he  became  of  age.     On  May  21,  1841,  he 

*  The  author,  in  addition  to  acknowledgments  made  in  the  course  of  this 
article,  wishes  to  express  his  very  great  ohligalions  for  material  or  aid  in  its 
preparation,  to  the  Rev.  D.  D.  Demarest,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  the  Rev.  J.  P. 
Mesick,  D.D.,  the  Rev.  J.  M.  Ferris,  D.D.,  John  C.  VanDj-ke,  L.H.D.,  the 
Rev.  B.  B.  Warfield,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  and  especially  to  the  Rev.  E.  B.  Coe, 
D.D.,  LL.D.,  and  the  Rev.  Theodore  F.  Chambers. 

3 


TEE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS.  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

married  Louisa  Mercer  Frelingliuysen,  a  member  of  his  church, 
and  a  descendant  of  the  Eev.  Theodorus  Jacobus  Frelinghuysen, 
who  was  the  apostle  of  the  Raritan  Valley  and  the  progenitox  of  a 
family  famous  in  the  history  of  New  Jersey  for  noble  service  to 
Church  and  State,  He  became  one  of  the  pastors  of  the  Collegiate 
Reformed  Dutch  Church  of  New  York  cit}',  on  December  2,  1849, 
and  remained  in  this  position  throughout  his  life.  The  manifold 
and  responsible  labors  of  this  pastorate  were  discharged  in  connec- 
tion with  many  others,  relating  to  the  work  of  education  and  to 
the  progress  of  the  Church  at  large,  of  which  more  detailed  men- 
tion will  be  made  elsewhere.  He  received  the  honorary  degree  of 
S.T,D.  from  Columbia  College  in  1853,  and  that  of  LL.D,  from  his 
Alma  Mater  in  1888.  In  June,  1892,  his  wife  was  taken  from  him 
by  death,  and  on  the  3d  of  February,  1896,  he  himself  fell  on 
sleep.  His  grave  is  in  Somerville,  N.  J.  Nine  children  survive 
the  parents,*  and  two  have  passed  on  before  them. 

Ancestry  and  Education. 

About  the  year  1720,  three  brothers  of  Scotch  descent,  bearing 
the  name  Chambers,  came  from  the  county  Antrim,  Ireland,  to 
this  country.  John  settled  in  Trenton,  N.  J.  Rowland  and 
Ronald  found  homes  near  Harrisburg,  Pa.  From  one  of  these  two 
Dr.  Chambers  was  descended.  They  were  of  the  stock  which  has 
done  so  much  for  Pennsylvania,  for  Presbyterianism  and  for  free- 
dom in  this  country.  They  received  from  their  fathers  and  trans- 
mitted to  their  children  blood  which  had  been  persecuted  for  the 
faith,  and  which  was  instinct  with  love  of  truth  and  with  indomi- 
table courage  in  its  defense. 

Dr.  Chambers'  own  father  was  a  graduate  of  Dickinson,  a 
cultured  and  influential  physician,  who  was  made  an  elder  of  the 
Carlisle  Church  a  little  more  than  two  years  after  his  public  con- 
fession of  faith.  He  was  an  active  Christian  and  very  faithful  in 
the  religious  education  of  his  children.  Dr.  Chambers'  mother  was 
a  descendant  of  Michael  Ege,  who  came  to  this  country  in  1738, 
perhaps  from  Mannheim,  Germany.  Her  father,  also  bearing  the 
name  of  Michael,  was  a  wealthy  iron  manufacturer,  and  at  his  death 
his  daughter  received  a  considerable  portion  of  his  estate.  The 
loss  of  this,  however,  which  took  place  before  the  completion  of 
the  education  of  the  children,  combining  perhaps  with  his  ill- 
health,  led  to  the  interruption  of  the  student's  life  at  Princeton, 
and,  as  already  mentioned,  to  the  efforts  at  teaching  in  the  South. 

*  These  are  Frederick  F.,  Arthur  D.,  the  Rev.  Theodore  F.,  Talbot  R., 
M.D.,  John  F.,  Louise  S.  (Mrs.  DeWitt  Knox),  Hilary  R.,  Catherine  V.  N., 
and  Sarah  F.  (Mrs.  A.  L.  Moore). 

4 


THE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

The  mother,  however,  brought  something  more  abiding  and  more 
valuable  than  wealth  into  the  home.  In  the  few  glimpses  we  have 
of  her  she  appears,  notwithstanding  her  son's  innate  love  of  learn- 
ing, as  a  distinct  and  potent  influence  with  him  to  faithful  study, 
and,  better  than  this,  to  the  faithful  performance  of  the  daily 
duties  of  personal  religion.  That  she  was  his  much  trusted  coun- 
selor appears  also  from  the  pages  of  his  diary. 

The  young  student's  first  teachers  in  the  classics  were  the  Kev. 
Joseph  Mahon,  the  Rev.  John  M.  Krebs,  D.D.,  and  John  A.  Inglis, 
LL.D.  During  his  college  life  two  influences  seem  to  have  been 
predominant  over  all  others  in  their  operation  upon  him.  The 
lesser  of  these  was  a  college  literary  society,  into  the  activities 
of  which  he  promptly  entered  and  largely  shared.  A  company 
of  brilliant  young  men  destined  to  eminence  in  various  directions 
were  at  that  time  in  the  membership  of  the  society.  Dr.  Cham- 
bers often  recurred  to  his  association  with  them  as  one  of  the  most 
happy  and  helpful  experiences  of  his  early  days,  and  doubtless  he 
here  laid  the  foundation  of  the  parliamentary  resource,  aptitude 
and  ejSfectiveness  which  gave  him  so  much  of  his  power  and  dis- 
tinction in  all  sorts  of  assemblies  of  men. 

The  greater  of  these  influences  was  the  influence  of  one  man, 
Alexander  McClelland.  Dr.  McClelland  was  the  Professor  of 
Metaphysics  and  Belles  Lettres  in  Dickinson  from  1815  to  1822, 
becoming  in  the  latter  year  Professor  of  Languages  in  Rutgers 
College.  In  1833,  in  addition  to  the  college  professorship,  he  was 
made  Professor  of  Oriental  Languages  and  Literature  in  the  theo- 
logical seminary,  then  conducted  in  the  same  building  with  the 
college.  He  was  eccentric  and  a  sufferer  from  disease,  but  a  man 
of  broad  and  profound  scholarship,  a  forceful  genius  and  a  great 
teacher,  while  his  pulpit  fame  lingers  in  many  memories  to-day. 
The  impression  made  by  him  on  the  Carlisle  community  was  such 
that  a  number  of  young  men  shortly  after  he  had  removed  to  New 
Brunswick  followed  him  thither.  Among  these,  the  parents  of 
young  Chambers,  warm  admirers  of  Dr.  McClelland,  sent  their  son, 
committing  him  to  the  doctor's  especial  guardianship. 

The  methods  of  this  teacher  were  his  own.  For  the  dull  or  idle 
student  they  were  drastic  in  their  severity.  He  was  utterly  intol- 
erant alike  of  careless  mistakes  or  slavish  memorizing.  He  insisted 
upon  thoroughness  of  research  on  the  student's  part  and  clearness 
and  precision  in  the  results  of  study.  Of  his  teaching,  Dr.  Cham- 
bers afterwards  wrote  :  ' '  He  roused  and  stimulated  the  entire 
intellectual  nature.  He  got  out  of  his  students  all  that  was  in  them. 
The  discipline  was  sometimes  rough,  and  not  infrequently  a  sharp 
word  cut  into  the  bone,  but  the  result  was  worth  all  that  it  cost. 


THE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

The  young  men  learned  liabits  of  attention,  of  patient  tliought,  of 

precision,  of  intellectual    honesty  and  of  patience Even 

dull  plodders  were  quickened  into  animation,  while  brighter 
natures  were  kindled  into  a  glow  of  enthusiasm  which  left  its  mark 
upon  all  their  subsequent  careers."  "  I  owed  more  to  him  than  to 
any  other  man,  living  or  dead,"  he  has  elsewhere  said. 

The  lad  was  assuredly  fortunate  in  coming,  while  still  very 
young  and  when  his  habits  of  study  were  as  yet  unformed,  under 
the  tuition  of  a  master  of  his  subject  and  of  the  teacher's  art,  who 
lived  that  he  might  teach,  and  in  escaping  thereby  the  crude  and 
listless  experimentation  of  the  average  preparatory  school-teacher, 
who  is  too  often  only  seeking  to  bridge  over  the  financial  chasm 
between  his  own  student  life  and  a  professional  career — who  teaches 
that  he  may  live.  That  the  pupil  was  worthy  of  his  teacher,  Dr. 
McClelland' s  own  emphatic  testimony  and  the  pupil's  whole  subse- 
quent career  abundantly  evidence.  The  capacity  of  the  one  was 
commensurate  with  the  training  of  the  other,  for  while  the  teacher 
perhaps  failed  in  the  efforts  he  made  directly  to  develop  the  mind 
of  the  scholar  on  the  side  of  the  imagination,  the  better  poise  and 
superior  control  of  the  other  great  powers  of  the  latter  more  than 
made  compensation. 

His  seminary  course  was  incomplete,  and  the  two  years  of  this 
course  which  he  did  secure  were  separated  by  an  interval  of  a  year 
and  were  passed  in  two  institutions.  The  junior  year  brought  him 
in  contact  still,  and  now  almost  exclusively,  with  Dr.  McClelland, 
whose  skill  in  teaching  Hebrew  found  the  best  of  its  many  monu- 
ments in  Dr.  Chambers'  scholarship.  At  Princeton  he  felt,  though 
for  a  comparatively  short  time,  the  impress  of  other  great  men, 
the  Alexanders,  Miller,  Hodge,  and  gratefully  breathed  the  spirit- 
ual atmosphere  in  which  they  taught  and  lived. 

The  trend  of  dogmatic  thought  in  both  these  seminaries,  how- 
ever, was  in  conflict  with  another  powerful  influence  affecting  him, 
and,  while  in  the  end  the  seminary  influence,  aided  by  his  native 
cast  of  mind,  prevailed,  the  result  was  slowly  reached,  and  for  a 
long  time  at  least  was  a  somewhat  modified  one.  The  great  con- 
troversy in  the  Presbyterian  Church  which  resulted  in  the  tempo- 
rary but  sharply  accentuated  division  into  the  Old  and  New  School 
branches  was  on.  Dr.  Chambers'  pastor,  the  only  one  he  ever 
had,  the  Rev.  Dr.  George  Duffield,  Avas  a  pronounced  New  School 
man.  The  great  majority  of  his  people  followed  his  leadership, 
more  perhaps  on  account  of  personal  attachment  than  intellectual 
persuasion,  and  most  devoted  among  them  were  the  members  of 
the  Chambers  family.  So  far  as  the  ecclesiastical  processes  against 
Dr.  Duffield  and  his  leader,  Dr.  Barnes,  arc  concerned,  Dr.  Cham- 

6 


THE  REV,  TALBOT  WILSON  CnAMBERS,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

bers  shared  in  the  sympathies  of  his  family,  and  continued  so  to  do 
even  after  he  had  felt  his  way  to  the  doctrinal  position  of  the  Old 
School  party.  That  there  was  some  hesitation  about  entering  the 
New  Brunswick  Seminary,  due  to  this  inner  conflict,  is  possible. 
It  also  may  have  caused  the  interval  between  the  years  at  New 
Brunswick  and  Princeton.  It  was  a  partiall}^  unsettled  conflict 
when  he  was  seeking  licensure,  for  difficulties  were  in  his  way  due 
to  his  expressed  "  inability  to  adopt  without  further  examination 
the  imjuitation  of  Adam's  sin  and  the  doctrine  of  limited  atone- 
ment." And  when  the  result  was  reached  so  far  as  his  views  of 
doctrine  were  concerned,  the  young  licentiate,  it  is  certain,  turning 
aside  from  flattering  offers  made  him,  sought  a  settlement  in  the 
Church  which  was  enriched  and  strengthened  by  the  service  of  his 
entire  after-life,  as  a  refuge  from  the  doctrinal  and  personal  strife 
prevailing  in  the  Church  of  his  birth.*  In  his  later  years  he  came 
to  feel  that  this  conflict,  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  doctrinal,  had 
been  productive  of  great  good  in  clarifying  the  theological  atmos- 
phere, and  in  stimulating  the  missionary  and  other  activities  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church. 

A  word  of  tribute  ought  to  be  written  here  to  the  influence  of 
his  pastor  upon  Dr.  Chambers'  life.  It  is  difficult  at  this  distance 
to  define  this  influence,  but  that  it  was  not  slight  is  seen  in  his 
expressions  of  affection  for  Dr.  Duffield,  and  in  the  fact  that  within 
a  few  years  four  such  men  as  Eobert  P.  Lee,  George  W.  Bethune, 
AVilliam  H.  Campbell  and  Talbot  W.  Chambers,  all  from  the 
Carlisle  Church,  entered  the  ministry  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  Scholar. 
Dr.  Chambers  was  always  and  preeminently  a  preacher  of  the 
Gospel,  but  in  the  charge  given  him  at  his  ordination  by  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Messier,  one  sentence  was  spoken  the  suggestion  of  which  was 
most  thoroughly  in  accord  with  his  own  views,  and  in  accord  wiXh. 
it  his  whole  life  was  to  be  brought.  "  Remember,  my  young 
brother,  that  the  lights  of  the  Church  were  great  students,  and  not 
great  visitors."     Scholarship  for  him  must  and  did  underlie  all  his 

*  111  an  address  at  the  centennial  of  the  Carlisle  Presbytery  in  1886,  Dr. 
Chambers  said :  "  Fifty  years  ago  the  conflict  between  the  Old  School  and 
the  New  was  at  its  height,  and  you  will  allow  me  a  word  as  to  my  personal 
relations  to  it.  My  father's  family  were  all  on  the  New  School  side,  while 
my  convictions  led  me  to  the  other.  The  feeling  of  the  parties  was  intense 
and  bitter.  Differences  ran  through  Presbyteries  and  congregations,  and 
neighborhoods  and  families,  and  even  social  relations  became  strained  and 
difficult.  When  I  entered  the  ministry,  the  case  was  trying.  I  was  not 
willing  to  go  into  the  New  School,  nor  could  I  grieve  my  kindred  by  going  into 
the  Old.  I  shunned  the  rocks  on  either  hand  by  entering  the  Dutch  Church 
which  I  had  come  to  know  by  being  a  student  at  New  Brunswick,  N.  J." 

7 


THE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

other  activities.  He  was  a  precocious,  an  indefatigable,  a  lifelong 
student.  Biblical,  linguistic  and  theological  studies  most  attracted 
him,  but  did  not  absorb  him.  He  read  much  and  in  man}''  lines. 
A  calm  thoroughness,  a  clear  vision  and  an  incessant  industry- 
characterized  his  intellectual  life.  A  tenacious  memory  and  a  well- 
disciplined  mind  made  the  fruitage  of  his  reading  alwavs  and 
instantly  available.  A  remarkable  incapacity  for  mental  fatigue 
greatlv  aided  him.  When  other  men  would  have  been  wearied 
with  much  reading,  to  rest  himself  he  read  again.  His  "\\dfe, 
passionately  fond  of  fishing,  believing  in  the  needed  benefits  of 
this  form  of  recreation  for  him  and  wishing  to  enlist  him  in  its 
undoubted  delights,  tried  to  awaken  a  taste  for  the  sport  in  her 
husband,  but  the  efforts  thus  made  resulted  in  failures  as  amusing 
as  they  were  complete.  It  was  not  safe  to  leave  the  unwilling 
fisherman  alone,  lest  his  attention  should  be  absorbed  from  the  fish 
perhaps  struggling  on  his  hook  to  the  Greek  Testament  which  was 
his  invariable  companion. 

As  a  boy  of  eighteen  he  reads  "  that  queer  old  writer.  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  who  delights  me  much,"  and  Dr.  Channing, 
whose  "  style  is  glorious,  but  the  doctrine  damnable,  although 
urged  in  the  kindest  manner  and  in  the  most  conciliatory  spirit.' ' 
In  the  same  year  he  reads  one  canto  of  Tasso  a  day.  He 
"  pants  for  Dante."  He  slowly  wends  his  way  through  Chilling- 
worth's  "  massive  pages."  He  buys  Gil  Bias  and  Don  Quixote  in 
the  original,  and  begins  Tacitus.  Montaigne,  and  Milton'' s  Apology 
for  Unlicensed  Printing  interest  him,  together  with  Hall  and  Taylor 
and  Euripides.  Thus  he  began  building  with  varied  but  choice  mate- 
rial on  the  foundation  laid  in  his  college  days.  His  plan  for  daily 
work  included  the  reading  of  Hebrew  before  breakfast  and  Greek 
before  dinner.  In  later  life  the  Greek  Testament  found  its  place,  in 
the  daily  routine,  alongside  the  Hebrew  in  the  earlier  hour,  on 
account  of  the  greater  quiet  he  could  then  secure.  That  this  was 
no  abbreviated  hour  is  seen  fi-om  the  fact  that  he  always  rose  as 
early  as  six  o'clock  and  frequently  at  half-past  four. 

As  to  the  outcome  of  this  life  of  study  we  know  in  part  that  he 
possessed  a  critical  knowledge  of  Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin,  French, 
German  and  Dutch,  and  a  vn.de  acquaintance  with  the  literature  of 
these  languages.  He  also  read  Arabic,  Syriac,  Italian  and  Spanish. 
"  He  was  well  acquainted  with  general  history,  especially  familiar 
with  Church  history,  and  minutely  conversant  with  the  history  of 
the  Reformed  Church  in  Europe  and  this  country."  *  The  history 
of  Christian  doctrine  and  of  the  controversies  in  which  it  was  devel- 
oped, and  that  of  the  critical  controversies  of  the  present  to  their 

*  Rev.  E.  B.  Coe,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  in  Memorial  Discourse. 

8 


THE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

roots  in  the  past  were  at  his  command.  He  had  a  wide  knowledge 
of  hymnology.  He  knew  his  Bible  best  of  all.  Insight,  dis- 
crimination, accuracy,  the  marks  of  a  true  scholar,  characterized 
his  every  utterance.  Among  the  hundreds  of  his  articles  lying 
before  the  writer  not  one  is  superficial  or  hastily  considered.  It  is 
doubtful  if  since  early  boyhood  he  ever  spoke  or  wrote  an 
obscure  sentence. 

And  so  he  was  fitted  to  become  "  a  most  important  member," 
"  of  unfailing  help  to  his  brethren,"  as  Dr.  Green  and  Dr.  Osgood 
respectively  testify,  in  the  company  of  Old  Testament  Eevisers, 
although  the  only  pastor  in  that  body  of  learned  specialists ;  and  it 
was  he  whom  this  company  selected  to  put  before  the  public  the 
explanation  of  their  labors  which  should  introduce  the  great  result 
to  the  intelligent  consideration  of  the  lovers  of  the  Book.  He 
filled  in  emergencies  and  with  complete  acceptance  to  students 
and  professors  the  Chairs  of  New  Testament  Exegesis  at  Princeton, 
Union,  Hartford  and  New  Brunswick.  He  taught  dogmatic  theol- 
ogy in  the  last-named  seminary  during  the  illness  of  Prof.  Van 
Zandt,  upon  the  basis  of  the  lectures  of  the  latter.  He  lectured 
upon  "  The  Law  ' '  at  Lane.  He  was  chairman  for  many  years  of  the 
important  Committee  on  Versions  of  the  American  Bible  Society. 
His  many  writings  attest  the  high  degree  of  his  scholarship  in 
their  almost  every  line. 

The  Author. 

Dr.  Chambers  wrote  but  few  books.  A  Memorial  of  Theodore 
Frelinghuysen ;  a  sketch  of  the  Noon-Day  Prayer  Meeting  in 
Fulton  street ;  an  Exposition  of  the  Prophecies  of  Amos  and  Zech- 
ariah  in  Lange's  "  Commentary,"  which  had  its  beginning,  so  far 
as  the  latter  prophecy  was  concerned,  in  a  course  of  sermons 
preached  in  his  first  pastorate;  The  Psalter:  A  Witness  to  the 
Divine  Origin  of  the  Bible,  which  contains  his  lectures  on  the  Ved- 
der  foundation,  delivered  at  New  Brunswick  in  1876  ;  and  the 
Companion  to  the  Revised  Old  Testament,  which,  while  disclaiming 
any  purpose  of  being  a  plea  for  the  Eevision's  acceptance,  is  yet 
an  unanswerable  one  for  its  consideration  :  these  make  up  the  list 
of  the  more  formal  publications  distinctly  his.  Nevertheless  he 
was  one  of  the  most  prolific  writers  of  the  American  Church,  out- 
side the  professional  editor's  chair.  Many  of  the  articles  in  the 
Concise  Dictionary  of  Religious  Knowledge,  edited  by  Dr.  Samuel 
Macauley  Jackson,  are  from  his  pen.  His  editorial  articles  in  the 
Christian  Intelligencer  and  the  New  York  Observer,  his  signed 
articles,  and  signed  and  unsigned  notices  of  books  in  these  papers, 
and  in  many  others  both  religious  and  secular,  and  in  magazines  and 

9 


THE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

reviews,  including  especially  the  Peesbyteriax  axd  Reformed 
Review,  his  occasional  papers,  pamphlets,  and  sermons  published 
in  one  way  and  another,  mount  in  number  into  the  thovisands. 
The  articles  range  from  the  brief  detached  paragraph  to  the  ex- 
tended series  or  the  elaborate  discussion,  and  cover  a  remarkable 
diversity  of  topics."  But  there  is  virility  in  them  all.  There  is 
no  mistaking  the  points  their  author  intended  making.  Some- 
times, indeed,  the  pen  is  a  rapier  ;  sometimes  it  drops  a  caustic  ; 
but  it  is  the  valiant  champion  of  some  great  cause,  or  a  kindly 
surgeon,  never  a  cruel  enemy  to  any  man,  "who  holds  the  pen. 
Their  English  is  undefiled.  The  magnum  opus  which  he  hoped  to 
make,  sketched  in  his  lectures  upon  "  The  Law ' '  at  Lane  Seminar}^, 
did  not  reach  the  publisher  s  hands  before  his  death.  It  is  much 
to  be  desired  that  the  science  of  Christian  ethics,  to  which  English- 
speaking  Christianity  has  made  such  meagre  literary  contribution, 
be  not  thereby  deprived  of  this  important  work. 

But  though  Dr.  Chambers  diffused  his  light  and  influence  in  pro- 
ductions for  the  most  part  fugitive  in  their  character,  and  has  left 
no  adequate  literary  monument  to  himself  and  to  his  acquirements 
and  abilities,  this  light  and  influence  have  not  been  lost ;  nor  has 
the  total  of  his  power  to  uplift  and  illumine  his  fellows  been  in  the 
least  diminished.  What  he  has  done  for  the  thinking  and  reading 
of  ministers  and  private  Christians  is  measureless.  He  seemingly 
to  us  effaced  himself  in  this  form  of  his  work,  so  far  as  future 
knowledge  of  this  work  as  his  is  concerned  ;  but  the  work  was 
done  ;  the  talents  entrusted  to  him  were  not  buried.  We  cannot 
sum  up  their  increase,  but  the  Lord  he  served  knows  where  to 
find  it  all. 

The  Presbyter  axd   Co-worker. 

Much  of  Dr.  Chambers'  most  effective  work  was  accomplished 
in  the  various  organized  bodies,  ecclesiastical  and  otherwise,  to 
which  he  belonged.  Pie  was  a  leader  of  assemblies.  In  the  dis- 
cussions on  the  floor,  amid  the  labors  of  the  committee-room, 
under  the  responsibilities  of  a  presiding  ofl&cer,  he  seemed  always 
to  be  in  his  proper  element,  and  best  to  put  forth  his  energies  so 
as  to  make  them  tell  upon  movements  and  upon  men.  In  the 
Classis,  Synod,  Board,  Association,  Alliance,  although  never  in 
any  sense  a  politician,  he  was  alwa^^s  an  aggressive  force.     He 

*  "Reminiscences  of  Alexander  McClelland,"  and  "Notes  on  a  Journey 
through  the  Wilderness  of  Sinai,"  both  appearing  in  the  Christian  Intelli- 
gencer; "Critical  Notes  on  the  Sunday  School  Lessons,"  in  the  Sunday 
School  Times,  and  "Studies  in  the  Psalter,"  in  T7ie  Homiletic  Review,  are 
among  the  more  important  of  Dr.  Chambers'  series  of  articles.  He  also 
wrote  much  in  various  publications  upon  questions  of  Old  Testament  criticism. 

10 


THE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

knew  how  to  make  the  convictions  of  the  one  man  beget  their 
counterparts  and  find  voice  in  the  votes  of  the  many.  He  some- 
times led  minorities,  but  not  often.  Nor  was  this  leadership  ever 
striven  after.  It  siin]>ly  belonged  to  him.  He  quickly  grasped 
and  weighed  the  factors  in  a  problem,  except  its  personal  ones, 
and  the  fact  that  he  knew  neither  friend  nor  foe  in  making  up  his 
judgment  upon  a  question  aided  the  well-tested  soundness  of  that 
judgment  in  securing  trusting  followers. 

His  methods  in  debate  were  characteristic  of  the  man.  An 
astute  parliamentarian,  he  knew  well  how  to  protect  the  cause  he 
advocated  from  the  arts  of  the  most  skillful  tactician  without 
resorting  to  those  arts  himself  His  main  reliance  was  upon 
straightforward,  incisive  argument.  The  weapons  he  could  use  in 
argument,  however,  ranged  from  shrapnel  to  Saladin's  sword,  and 
his  attack  upon  an  opponent,  especially  in  his  earlier  years,  some- 
times seemed  almost  destructive  in  its  possibilities  if  not  in  its 
intent.  But  again,  it  was  the  champion  of  a  cause,  overpowered 
by  the  conviction  of  its  vital  right,  not  the  enemy  of  any  man, 
who  made  this  attack.  In  later  years,  when  he  came  to  have  a 
profound  faith  in  the  stability  of  the  truth,  no  matter  what  men 
might  do,  and  as  his  whole  life  mellowed  toward  the  ripened  fruit, 
his  methods  in  controversy  mellowed  too. 

Dr.  Chambers,  in  this  character  of  a  leader,  performed  service 
of  notable  value  again  and  again  to  the  Church  of  his  adoption 
and  heartiest  love.  This  is  not  the  place  to  attempt  the  review  of 
all  the  many  perplexing  questions  in  our  Keformed  Church  life 
toward  the  happy  solution  of  which  he  made  distinct  contribution. 
But  the  wisdom  and  efficiency  of  his  leadership  at  one  or  two  crises 
belong  to  a  wider  history  than  that  of  a  mere  denomination.  In 
1857,  a  report,  written  by  his  hand  and  supported  by  his  voice,  was 
adopted  by  the  General  Synod  which  committed  the  Dutch  Church 
to  the  independent  administration  of  its  Foreign  Missions.  These 
previously  had  been  conducted  by  the  American  Board.  The 
change  was  at  once  productive  of  a  great  increase  in  the  missionary 
interest  and  effort  of  the  Church,  and  lies  vitally  at  the  foundation 
of  the  missionary  enterprise,  by  no  means  insignificant  in  its  pro- 
portions and  its  results,  carried  on  ever  since  by  this  comparatively 
small  body  of  Christians.  In  1867  the  Church  was  agitated  by  the 
culmination  of  a  movement  to  drop  the  word  ' '  Dutch  ' '  from  its 
title.  It  has  been  suspected  that  this  was  intended  to  be  the  first 
step  in  a  process  which  should  bring  about  the  extinction  of  the 
separate  existence  of  the  denomination.  Dr.  Chambers  fought 
this  proposition  with  all  his  resource  and  zeal.  He  was  defeated  ; 
but  in  his  struggle,   unsuccessful  as  to  the  immediate  issue,  the 

11 


THE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

spirit  of  the  whole  body  was  so  aroused  that  the  second  step  in  the 
process,  though  attempted,  was  never  taken. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  service  he  rendered  his  own  Church  was  in 
the  practical  administration  of  its  Foreign  Missions.  In  his  student 
life  *  he  had  consecrated  himself  to  this  work  for  direct  service  ; 
but  the  hand  which  had  closed  the  pathway  for  him  to  any  one 
foreign  field,  opened  others  through  which  his  influence  should  be 
felt  in  many  such  fields,  and  he  was  thus  enabled  to  yield  an  in- 
direct service  to  the  cause  of  missions  far  greater  perhaps  in  its 
reach  and  its  effectiveness  than  the  other  could  possibly  have  been. 
He  was  for  twenty- two  years  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Foreign 
Missions  of  the  Keformed  Church,  and  for  the  last  eight  years  of 
his  life  its  President.  He  had  an  intimate  knowledge  of  every 
missionary  and  of  every  mission  under  the  Board's  care.  He 
brought  all  his  faith  and  courage  as  well  as  his  business  ability  into 
this  form  of  service.  He  thus  gave  inspiration  as  well  as  guidance 
to  the  Board  more  than  once,  when  to  all  others  but  himself  a 
forward  movement  seemed  an  impossibility.  His  personal  gifts  to 
this  great  work,  in  their  regularity  and  in  their  measure,  as  has 
transpired  since  his  death,  corresponded  with  his  other  efforts  for  its 
prosecution. 

While  Dr.  Chambers  was  a  loyal  denominationalist,  no  man 
could  be  more  free  from  the  narrowness  of  the  High  Churchman. 
Believing  in  the  regiment  and  the  necessity  of  its  obedience  to  its 
own  marching  orders,  he  believed  also  in  the  other  regiments 
ranged  beside  his  own,  and  in  the  unity  of  interest  and  of  aim 
which  bound  all  together  in  the  one  great  army  of  the  Captain  of 
the  Host.  He  sought  something  better,  truer,  than  the  formal  and 
artificial  union  of  Christian  Churches,  that  is,  their  spiritual  one- 
ness. He  was  himself  a  catholic  Christian,  fraternizing  cheerfully 
and  widely  with  his  brethren  of  other  Churches.  Every  believer 
in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  every  wise  organization  of  such  be- 
lievers for  carrying  on  their  Lord's  work,  was  the  object  of  his 
sympathetic  interest  and,  so  far  as  was  in  his  power,  the  beneficiary 

*  September  1,  1835,  the  diary  contains  the  following:  "I  do  now,  in  the 
sight  of  God,  hereby,  after  many  months'  deliberate  and  prayerful  considera- 
tion, believing  it  to  be  my  solemn  and  bounden  duty,  devote  myself  to  the 
service  of  God,  my  Creator,  Preserver  and  Redeemer  in  the  Foreign  Mission- 
ary field,  leaving  my  particular  location  in  His  hands  and  only  concerned  so 
to  live  as  will  most  conduce  to  His  glory  as  illustrated  in  the  salvation  of 
immortal  souls."  Later  he  reviews  the  reasons  for  this  resolution  in  detail 
and  reaffirms  it.  He  also  began  and  made  some  progress  in  the  study  of 
medicine  to  fit  himself  for  the  missionary  work.  The  subsequent  precarious 
state  of  his  health  absolutely  prohibited  the  carrying  out  of  this  resolution,  if 
no  other  difficulties,  as  may  have  been  the  case,  existed. 

12 


TEE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

of  his  active  endeavors.  To  the  great  agencies  for  uniting  the  re- 
sources of  various  Christian  denominations  in  common  effort  for  the 
upbuilding  of  Christ's  kingdom,  he  gave  time,  labor,  and  the  best 
that  was  in  him,  unstintedly.  For  years  he  was  a  Manager  of  the 
American  Bible  Society,  in  addition  to  his  services  as  Chairman  of 
its  Committee  on  Versions  already  noted,  while  he  never  lost  an 
opportunity,  and  went  often  out  of  his  way  to  make  opportunities, 
for  advocating  the  claims  of  this  magnificent  missionary  agency 
upon  churches  and  Christians  of  whatever  name.  He  gave  to  the 
American  Tract  Society  most  valuable  service  as  a  member  and 
then  as  Chairman  of  its  Publishing  and  Executive  Committees. 
He  was  an  active  friend  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance.  In  the 
Alliance  of  the  Reformed  Churches  holding  the  Presbyterian  Sys- 
tem the  efficiency  of  his  devotion  was  recognized  by  his  being 
made  President  of  the  Western  Section,  and  then  President  of 
the  Alliance,  a  position,  as  all  know,  occupied  by  him  at  the  time 
of  his  death. 

In  educational  matters,  too,  this  same  capacity  for  action  with 
other  men  was  conspicuously  exhibited.  He  was  an  efficient 
Trustee  of  Rutgers  College  from  1868,  and  of  Columbia  College 
from  1881.  He  was  Chairman  of  the  committee  which  selected 
most  of  the  books  contained  in  the  Sage  Library  at  New  Bruns- 
wick ;  and  his  other  services,  ofl&cial  and  unofficial,  to  both  the 
theological  seminaries  of  the  Reformed  Church  will  long  be  grate- 
fully remembered. 

He  was  also,  as  Senior  Pastor  of  the  Collegiate  Church,  a  Mana- 
ger of  the  Presbyterian  Hospital,  and  of  the  Leake  and  Watts 
Orphan  House.  He  belonged  to  many  other  organizations,  liter- 
ary, historical,  etc.,  and  from  all  these  come  testimonies  to  his 
faithfulness  and  effectiveness  in  advancing  their  various  objects. 
Doubtless  he  here  again  diffused  his  influence  so  as  to  leave  no 
index  to  its  volume  or  measure  of  its  rich  value  or  lasting  reminder 
of  the  personal  source  in  which  divine  grace  generated  it.  But 
this  influence  was  not  thereby  dissipated.  It  is  not  lost  to  the 
Master- Workman's  eye. 

The   Pastor  and  the  Preacher. 

As  a  pastor.  Dr.  Chambers  was  not  a  "  great  visitor."  The 
temptation  to  become  a  social  gadabout,  a  sort  of  professional  en- 
tertainer of  other  people's  guests,  which  often  besets  the  young 
rural  minister,  probably  never  appealed  to  him.  It  was  certainly 
successfully  resisted  if  it  did.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was  never  a 
timid  or  selfish  recluse.  He  was  systematic  and  scrupulously  dili- 
gent in  the  oversight  of  the  spiritual  condition  of  each  member  of 

13 


THE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

his  churches.  He  believed  that  in  the  great  book  of  human  nature 
were  hidden  rich  treasures  of  knowledge,  and  that  in  the  Gospel  of 
which  he  was  a  minister  was  a  remedy  for  all  the  ills  of  the  human 
heart.  So  he  conscientiously  sought  out  the  men  and  women 
and  children  entrusted  to  his  pastoral  care,  that  he  might  know 
them  and  might  prove  himself  unto  God  a  workman  that  needeth 
not  to  be  ashamed,  rightly  dividing  to  men  individually  the  Word 
of  truth.  The  lonely  cottage  on  the  mountain  side,  the  hut  of  the 
neglected  negro,  the  almshouse,  the  squalid  tenement,  and  the 
luxuriant  home  have  all  echoed  to  his  kind  but  most  direct  admo- 
nition, to  his  words  of  consolation,  to  his  simple,  earnest  prayers ; 
and  from  all  these  have  preceded  him  into  the  glory  beyond,  pre- 
cious souls  which  shall  shine  as  stars  in  his  crown  of  rejoicing. 
Ilis  sagacity  and  energy  in  leading  the  collective  flock,  whether  in 
the  country  village  or  the  great  city,  have  their  demonstration  in 
tangible  facts.  The  labors  of  the  youthful  preacher  in  the  infancy 
of  the  Second  Church  of  Somerville,  now  one  of  the  strongest 
churches  of  its  denomination,  are  acknowledged  as  "  labors  which 
laid  broad  and  deep  the  foundations  of  its  present  prosperity." 
The  Collegiate  Church  has  put  on  record  its  appreciation  of  his 
value  "  in  the  conduct  of  its  affairs  "  as  a  value  which  can  "  hard- 
ly be  estimated." 

As  a  maker  of  sermons  he  was  an  exceedingly  conscientious 
workman.  He  put  hard  study  into  the  substance  and  the  arrange- 
ment of  every  one,  whether  completely  written  or  sketched  in 
elaborate  and  full  outline,  as  was  the  case  of  most  of  those  pre- 
pared in  his  later  years.  The  result  was  always  lucid,  orderly, 
succinct,  and  so  analyzed,  illustrated  and  pointed  that  even  the 
careless  hearer  would  carry  away  a  definite  idea  of  the  whole 
sermon.  The  general  method  of  his  sermonizing  was  a  combina- 
tion of  the  expository  with  the  topical,  the  analogy  of  the  faith 
never  being  forgotten.  He  sought,  under  the  constantly  remem- 
bered power  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  to  instruct  in  the  truth,  and  to 
persuade  the  will  chiefly  through  the  reason.  His  own  emotional 
nature  being  under  rigid  control,  he  made  only  rare  and  brief 
appeals  to  that  nature  in  others.  Whatever  imagination  he  pos- 
sessed found  little  voice  in  his  sermons.  He  saw  things  as  they 
were  with  such  close  approach  to  exactness,  he  so  felt  the  power 
and  beauty  of  the  truth  in  itself,  that  in  preaching  this  truth  a 
flight  of  imaginative  rhetoric  would  have  seemed  to  him  to  have 
been  an  almost  impious  distortion  or  obscuration  of  the  divine 
message.  In  the  almost  purely  intellectual  character  of  his 
preaching  lay  one  of  his  pulpit  limitations,  so  far  as  the  popular 
audience  was  concerned.     Nevertheless,  hearers  who  were  accus- 

14 


THE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBEItS,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

tomed  to  his  methods,  who  were  careful  Bible  students,  or  who 
possessed  some  measure  of  mental  discipline  such  as  that  even  of  a 
body  of  college  undergraduates,  restless  under  a  sermon  as  these 
last  usually  are,  would  feel  very  quickly  the  spell  of  his  rich,  clear 
thinking  or  felicitous  diction,  and  highly  appreciated  the  oppor- 
tunity of  listening  to  him.  But  notwithstanding  this  limitation, 
his  sermons  were  never  dull  or  cold.  His  own  intense  conviction 
as  to  the  truth,  for  he  never  preached  above  his  own  experience, 
put  glow  and  life  and  heart  into  them.  Nor  were  his  emotions 
always  successfully  controlled.  Such  passages  of  Scripture  as 
"  Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children,  so  the  Lord  pitieth  them 
that  fear  him,"  were  sometimes  repeated  by  him  \nX\x  tremulous, 
broken  utterance.  A  devoted  parishioner*  has  written  of  an 
attempt  the  doctor  once  made  to  quote  the  hymn,  ' '  I  think  when 
I  read  that  sweet  story  of  old, ' '  which  reached  only  to  the  couplet, 

"I  wish  that  his  haacls  had  been  placed  on  my  head, 
That  his  arm  had  been  thrown  around  me," 

when  the  speaker  was  wholly  overcome. 

His  manner  in  the  pulpit  was  dignified  without  being  lifeless, 
and  sometimes  became  impassioned.  His  gestures  were  appropri- 
ate, but  not  profuse.  His  delivery,  in  a  building  adapted  to  his 
voice,  was  conversational,  although  he  knew  how  to  put  tremen- 
dous emphasis  upon  his  thought  when  necessity  required.  But  in 
his  voice  lay  another  and  the  chief  limitation  preventing  a  general 
appreciation  of  the  greatness  and  the  profitableness  of  his  preach- 
ing. He  was  endowed  with  all  the  requisites  of  a  Boanerges, 
except  the  thunder.  His  voice  was  clear  and  pleasant,  but  not 
strong.  In  forcing  it,  as  he  was  compelled  to  do  in  a  large  audience- 
room,  the  finer  modulations  were  lost,  and  the  effort  not  being 
uniformly  sustained,  words  and  parts  of  sentences  became  indistinct. 
Yoice- building  was  an  unknown  art  in  his  seminary  days  and  was 
perhaps  incompatible  with  the  twelve  or  fourteen  hours  spent 
almost  daily  at  his  desk  and  with  his  books  ;  yet  one  cannot  help 
regretting  that  the  development  of  the  voice's  strength  possible  for 
every  student  of  to-day  was  beyond  his  reach.  His  fame  and  influ- 
ence as  a  preacher  would  then  have  perhaps  eclipsed  even  those  of 
the  scholar.     This  deficiency  he  himself  felt  and  regretted. 

There  was  one  striking  feature  of  Dr.  Chambers'  public  services 
in  his  own  Church,  mention  of  which  may  have  special  interest  for 
the  liturgical  student  as  well  as  for  those  attached  to  the  ancient 
usages  of  the  "  Dutch"  Church.  He  retained  to  the  last  the 
exordium  remotum,  and  was  the  only  one  of  our  ministers  so  to 

*  William  L.  Brewer,  Esq. 

15 


THE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS,  ST.D.,  LL.D. 

do.  This,  as  some,  but  not  all,  may  know,  was  a  brief  address 
preceding  the  prayer  before  the  sermon,  on  some  subject  sufficiently 
related  to  that  of  the  sermon  to  point  the  thought  of  the  worshiper 
toward  the  latter.  These  addresses,  as  Dr.  Chambers  gave  them, 
were  often  models  of  compressed  but  clean-cut  and  polished  extem- 
pore speech.  Only  the  abbreviated  outline  of  some  of  them  remain 
on  the  inner  page  of  the  covers  of  his  manuscripts.  His  public 
prayers  were  those  of  a  man  broad  in  his  sympathies,  versed  in  the 
language  of  Scripture,  strong  in  faith,  and  much  accustomed  to 
secret  supplication. 

The  Man. 

Dr.  Chambers  was  slightly  under  the  medium  height  and  was  of 
slender  build.  His  carriage  was  very  erect.  The  latter  was  due 
partly  to  an  early  formed  purpose  to  resist  at  every  possible  point 
the  approaches  of  pulmonary  trouble,  a  tendency  to  which  he  felt 
existed.  So  he  worked  at  a  desk  which  rose  from  his  table 
level  at  an  angle  of  at  least  sixty  degrees,  and  compelled  the 
writer's  shoulders  to  be  in  the  most  healthful  position.  His  well- 
remembered  habit  of  bending  slightly  backward  and  filling  his  lungs 
to  their  utmost  when  walking  or  engaged  in  public  speech,  was  due 
to  the  same  deliberate  purpose.  His  success  in  the  long  struggle 
with  this  insidious  enemy  is  not  without  its  significance  for  others. 
His  step  was  light  and  firm  to  the  last.  The  only  mark  of  age  in 
his  appearance  was  the  snowy  whiteness  of  his  hair  and  beard. 
His  complexion  was  the  pale  one  of  the  student.  His  face  ex- 
pressed refinement,  the  habitual  exercise  of  the  judgment,  the 
resolution  of  conviction,  and  a  courage  which  knew  how  to  be  kind 
but  not  to  flinch. 

In  social  intercourse  he  was  a  good  listener,  and  entered  into  con- 
versation himself  only  when  he  had  something  to  say  other  than 
the  by-play  of  small  talk.  Bvit  he  knew  how  thus  to  tone  up  the 
conversation  of  a  company  without  arresting  its  lively  flow  or 
seeming  to  direct  its  course.  His  intellectual  gifts  have  been 
already  measurably  indicated.  They  were  accompanied  by  a 
native  fearlessness  which  was  so  complete  that  it  is  doubtful  if 
its  possessor  ever  consciously  summoned  its  aid,  and  by  a  will  so 
resolute  that  it  would  be  shaken  by  nothing  except  the  truth. 

What  he  became  upon  the  basis  of  the  gifts  graciously  bestowed 
on  him  at  birth,  was  due  to  the  early  and  continuous  operation  of 
grace  upon  the  whole  man.  His  surrender  in  childhood  to  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  a  surrender  to  a  Master  as  well  as  to  a 
Redeemer,  and  was  unreserved.  It  included  every  moment  of  his 
time  and  his  every  power.     His  diary,  which  begins  when  he  was 

16 


THE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

sixteen,  reveals  a  youth  already  striving  daily  to  realize  the  matured 
Christian  experience  of  a  Doddridge  or  Bernard  of  Clairvaux, 
The  testimony  of  those  who  knew  him  in  his  student  days  is  clear 
as  to  the  purity  and  depth  of  his  piety  and  his  singleness  of  aim  in 
all  that  he  did.  The  boy  in  this  case  really  became  the  father  of 
the  man.  If  scholarship  for  him  must  underlie  all  his  "activities, 
a  high  spirituality  must  also  be  the  atmosphere  in  which  they 
were  put  forth.  The  cultivation  of  this  side  of  his  life  he  made  a 
constant  duty,  to  be  as  carefully  and  regularly  attended  to  as  the 
wants  of  the  physical  nature.  He  habitually  read  his  English 
Bible  to  aid  in  this,  that  no  question  of  scholarship  might  interfere 
with  the  voice  from  God  he  sought  to  hear. 

The  abiding  conviction,  inwrought  from  above,  that  he  was  not 
his  own  but  had  been  bought  with  a  price,  dominated  his  life  and 
was  the  key  to  all  that  he  became,  the  spring  of  all  that  he  accom- 
plished. The  thoroughness  of  the  consecration  he  had  been  ena- 
bled to  make  quickened  and  uplifted  all  his  gifts.  It  stimulated 
his  great  native  industry  moment  by  moment  all  his  days.  It 
imposed  on  this  industry  the  most  carefully  adjusted  method  in 
work,  that  nothing  of  time,  of  energy,  belonging  to  his  Lord, 
should  be  wasted.  It  kept  his  judgment  and  will  always  alert  and 
active  in  seeking  the  highest  possible  development  of  his  talents 
and  their  most  effective  service,  not  for  his  own  sake,  but  for  the 
sake  of  the  Master  to  whom  he  belonged.  It  kept  him  at  work 
with  all  his  might  until  the  end  of  life.  Though  long  past  three 
score  years  and  ten,  he  bore  multiplied  and  heavy  responsibilities 
with  the  willingness  of  a  man  in  midlife,  and  accepted  new  ones 
with  the  readiness  of  one  still  young.     He  was  faithful  unto  death. 

This  conviction  made  him  an  uncompromisingly  truthful  man,  to 
whom  accuracy  in  investigation  and  expression,  and  even  exactness 
in  his  business  affairs,  were  moral  obligations  and  became  a  second 
nature  ;  for  whom  there  was  nothing  expedient  but  the  expedi- 
ency of  naked  truth  ;  whose  outspoken  convictions  as  to  the  truth 
could  be  modified  by  no  tempest  of  popular  clamor  or  massing  of 
opponents  or  menace  of  any  kind  ;  a  man  so  truthful  that  his 
judgment  was  always  kept  open  to  new  light  upon  any  question 
whatever,  and  who,  when  new  light  came,  was  restrained  by  no 
traditions,  his  church's  or  his  own,  and  by  no  pride  of  his  own 
reason,  from  frankly  acknowledging  the  past  mistake  and  the  sup- 
planting truth.  "  I  was  wrong  and  he  was  right,"  he  has  said  and 
written  more  than  once,  when  the  issues  raised  have  been  important 
ones  and  when  his  committal  to  what  he  afterwards  came  to  be- 
lieve was  error  had  been  public  and  complete.  He  was  a  conserva- 
tive upon   certain  theological  and  notably  upon  certain   critical 

17 


THE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

questions  ;  not  from  any  fear  of  results,  not  from  mental  habit,  not 
from  obstinate  self-determination,  but  from  living  and  renewed 
conviction  resting  upon  an  active  judgment  intelligent  enough  and 
brave  enough  to  discard  plausible  and  popular  sophistries  for  fun- 
damental and  enduring  principles.  In  1877,  writing  of  the  Eev. 
Dr.  H.  B.  Smith,  then  recently  deceased,  a  man  from  whom  Dr. 
Chambers  differed  broadly  on  many  points,  but  whom  he  warmly 
loved,  he  says  :  "  Like  all  true  students,  Dr.  Smith  reverenced  the 
past,  yet  he  was  not  its  slave.  Thoroughly  comprehending  its 
principles  and  spirit,  he  pressed  forward  in  the  same  lines  to  a 
fuller  and  riper  development."  He  here  unintentionally  describes 
his  own  attitude.  While  he  loyally  held  fast  to  that  which  was 
good,  he  was  as  ready  in  his  last  years  as  in  his  younger  ones 
to  "  prove  all  things."  In  other  words,  while  he  was  a 
man  of  rock-like  convictions,  these  were  always  convictions 
and  never  prejudices.  Out  of  the  fullness  of  his  knowledge  of  the 
principles  and  the  processes  of  the  destructive  school  of  Biblical 
criticism,  he  distrusted  and  rejected  its  conclusions.  Nor  is  the 
future  without  its  promise  of  complete  vindication  for  some,  if  not 
all,  of  his  convictions  as  to  the  integrity  and  historicity  of  the 
Word  of  God. 

This  dominant  conviction  made  him  a  very  humble  and  unselfish 
man.  The  idea  of  self  when  it  occurred  to  him  in  ordinary  con- 
versation or  in  formal  speech  seemed  always  to  be  in  the  form  of 
an  impersonal  conception,  a  sort  of  objective  entity  which  thrust 
itself  upon  his  attention  and  which  might  be  used,  as  any  otlier 
thing,  for  illustration  but  never  as  occasion  for  boasting.  It  is 
true  he  sometimes  appeared  tenacious  of  his  personal  rights,  but 
this  was  only  when  these  seemed  to  him  to  safeguard  principles,  or 
the  rights  and  interests  of  others.  Official  responsibilities  he  never 
sought,  and  he  welcomed  them  when  they  came  only  for  the  oppor- 
tunities they  brought  with  them.  For  mere  honors  he  cared  noth- 
ing. Few,  indeed,  are  the  men  who  have  succeeded  in  acqviiriug 
the  fixed  habit  of  his  mind  in  looking  far  above  the  applause  of 
his  fellows  for  the  approval  of  his  Master's  eye.  The  ' '  one  thing 
I  do  "  of  St.  Paul  was  the  one  thing  he  ever  sought  to  do ;  for  to 
his  dying  day  he  counted  himself  as  only  a  sinful  man  who  had 
not  yet  apprehended  that  for  which  he  had  been  apprehended  by 
a  gracious  Saviour. 

This  dominating  conviction  led  him  to  victories  in  the  domain  of 
his  own  heart  greater  even  than  those  he  achieved  in  the  external 
life.  The  record  of  these  belongs  not  here.  A  single  illustration, 
however,  will  perhaps  be  not  out  of  place.  Dr.  Chambers  pos- 
sessed a  naturally  quick  temper.     No  one  appreciated  its  presence 

18 


THE  REV.  TALBOT  WILSON  CHAMBERS,  S.T.D.,  LL.D. 

and  its  danger  more  than  himself.  He  fought  it  as  an  enemy  to 
the  nobler  self  which  he,  for  Christ's  sake,  desired  to  become. 
And  in  the  marvelous  sweetness  and  gentleness  of  his  character 
under  the  heaviest  strain  in  his  closing  years  the  result  of  this 
inner  conflict  was  made  clear. 

This  conviction  developed  in  him  great  fortitude.  Seasons  of 
severe  chastening  came  to  him  now  and  then  and  demonstrated  in 
him  a  Christian  heroism  which  knew  how  not  only  to  dare,  but 
also  to  endure.  The  hardest  stroke  fell  when  he  was  but  partially 
recovered  from  dangerous  illness  himself,  and  when,  at  a  continent's 
distance  from  his  home,  the  wife  who  had  gone  forth  with  him 
apparently  in  perfect  health  to  care  for  him,  and  of  whom  he  was 
passionately  fond,  suddenly  sickened  and  died.  If  his  spirit  fal- 
tered under  the  swift,  sharp  blow,  no  man  ever  discovered  it. 
When  the  long,  sad  homeward  journey  with  his  dead  was  finished, 
and  the  usual  hour  for  family  worship  came,  the  travel- worn  and 
stricken  husband  took  his  accustomed  place  as  priest  at  the  family 
altar.  The  prayer  was  not  the  cry  of  the  broken  heart  within 
him,  but  the  voicing  of  a  faith  that  in  perfect  submission  had 
triumphed  over  grief,  the  prayer  of  a  soul  which  was  stayed  upon 
its  God  and  was  kept  in  perfect  peace.  Nor  was  this  fortitude  less 
conspicuous  when  the  thought  of  his  own  death  occurred  to  him, 
and  when  the  reality  manifestly  drew  near.  In  death,  as  in  life, 
he  had  full  persuasion  that  he  was  his  Lord's. 

Conclusion". 

Viewing  Dr.  Chambers'  long  life  as  a  whole,  it  was  one  on  which 
the  divine  favor  rested  in  large  degree  and  with  remarkable  uni- 
formity. The  Lord  gave  him  a  true  helpmeet  in  a  "vvife  who  filled 
his  home  and  life  with  the  warmth  and  cheer  of  a  large-hearted, 
joyous  spirit,  and  she  was  spared  to  him  until  his  own  course  was 
almost  finished.  He  gave  him  affectionate  children.  He  gave 
him  friends  in  all  walks  of  life,  and  some  of  the  most  devoted  in 
his  old  age  were  among  the  young,  for  he  attracted  with  facility 
the  affection  of  children.  He  gave  him  honors  such  as  in  their 
variety  and  number  come  to  but  few,  and  which  were  real  indices 
to  the  sweep  and  value  of  actual  influence.  He  gave  him,  not- 
withstanding the  large  family  he  indulgently  brought  up  and  his 
more  than  generous  gifts  to  this  form  of  benevolence  and  to  that, 
a  comfortable  competence.  He  gave  him  unimpaired  vigor  of 
mind,  and  work  to  do,  until  the  day  of  his  last  brief  sickness. 
And  then  He  gently  summoned  him  into  rest. 

The   ninety-first   of    the   Psalms    lie    loved,    describes    Talbot 
Wilson  Chambers'  career  and  its  end. 

19 


ri-'.^-wi»»-T 


PHOTOMOUNT 

PAMPHLET  BINDER 

Manufactured  by 

GAYLORD  BROS.  Inc. 

Syracuse,  N.Y. 

Stockton,  Colif . 


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